Gary's day

The mild weather continued this weekend for our trip to Home Farm's small lake; a little breezy at times but thankfully dry. We were all looked forward to getting a few bites after a tough few weeks of fishing.

It was peg 6 for me today at the other end of the lake from where I seem to keep drawing. Rob and Tony were in pegs 1 and 3 again with Steve opposite me on 5 and Fred and Phil completing my bank.

A quick try with with bread punch out in the middle in case any carp were cruising around with the high pressure proved fruitless. Steve then had a carp and it was time to feed some bait and be patient. The next hour disappeared as I tried micros and expanders. A couple of lightning quick bites gave me just enough to keep trying. Steve was also suffering from unhittable bites. The rest of the lake was very quiet with only Rob having a fish and even the silvers not feeding. We could also hear the big lake behind was fishing hard.

A swap to maggot finally got a couple of hittable bites with a small roach and then a carp that started like roach and ended like a steam train whilst playing it in. One more small carp then led to a long quiet spell.

Tony was starting to hook but not land fish and Steve was also having a run of foulhookers. A bit after the midpoint I had another small carp on bomb and bread and then my last carp and pretty much last bite of the day at 1pm. With Tony getting a couple of carp to the net and Steve another it was going to be close.

It was tight again with the quality of fish and keeping them on the hook making all the difference. 1st Gary Pickard 23lbs 9oz, 2nd Tony Cruci 14lbs 1oz and 3rd Steve Foster 10lbs 15oz and Phil had a couple of good quality roach including one at 11oz. Picture today is me with by efforts of 5 hours.